Blood Ties: The Ties that Bind
by by xandria
Summary: Asteroth is defeated but the price of victory was high& left its mark on the hearts of our trio. But the supernatural doesn’t stop for heartbreak and there are new dangers waiting in the dark. Can they recover and find the strength to fight again?
1. Chapter 1

Blood Ties; The Ties that Bind

…here we go again…

Synopsis; Asteroth is defeated but the price of victory was high and left its mark on the hearts of our trio. But the supernatural doesn't stop for heartbreak and there are new dangers waiting in the dark. Can they recover and find the strength to fight again?

_Words of Warning and Disclaimer; I do not own the Blood Ties universe, characters etc. they are the work of the very talented Tanya Huff, and brought into 3d living colour by the ingenious creative mind of Peter Mohan. That said, my fanfiction is based solely on the television show, Blood Ties and any inconsistencies with the Blood Books is therefore to be expected._

_Secondly, I wanted to draw readers' attention to the fact that this is the direct sequel to my previous fanfictions entitled Blood Ties Blood Bond, and Blood Ties First Blood. Without reading those stories before starting this sequel there will be absolutely no context or background to the story and you would, in essence, be starting in at the end. I chose to start another story instead of just continuing the last because this one will have a very different focus and feel even though it takes up the plot almost directly where First Blood left off. Also, this fic deals with explicit adult themes (more so then the others) and is not for young readers, please use your own discretion. _

_This will be the final fanfiction that I write in this series, making up a trilogy of;_

_1. Blood Ties Blood Bond; _

_2. Blood Ties First Blood, and finally; _

_3. Blood Ties The Ties that Bind._

_I hope you enjoy them all and, as always, I welcome comments!_

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Blood Ties; The Ties that Bind Ch. 1

Ice clinked and cracked in the glass, the sound the only music, only joy his world allowed. He stared into the depths watching the golden liquid mix and swirl with the melting ice, water creating spirals as he lifted the glass and drank half it down in one gulp. Gold…he hated the colour. It was the colour of her hair in sunlight….and the shimmer of her skin…the very taste of her on his lips…

He lurched upright, throwing the glass as hard as he could against the wall, watching as the liquid amber scotch and broken shards fell in drops to the floor. He didn't want to remember. People said it would help, said he should talk about it, that it would help him to heal if he remembered….but how could he remember if he couldn't even bring himself to say her name?

Drinking helped…made him sleep, forget for an hour, a day, the pain that engulfed him like a shadow and stole the colour from his world. He groped around blindly on the table beside him, searching for the bottle, damn the glass. It was dark in his apartment, but whether that was because the shades were drawn or it was night he didn't know and couldn't bring himself to care. It was hard to care about much these days…friends, family, work, it all seemed so pointless.

Crowley had assigned him to a psychiatrist, meetings twice a week. He'd never gone. Finally after he nearly killed a pimp trying to get a confession out of the bastard when a blonde undercover cop ended up in the hospital she'd put him on suspension and then after he showed up to the review hearing hung over…well…work wasn't' something he needed to worry about anymore.

Leave of Absence…it sounded almost ironic, especially after how hard he had worked to get back on the force, the extra cases, late nights, ignored phone calls and invitations to dinner…and now Crowley was forcing him to leave…because of her absence. She was gone…and the world was falling apart anyways.

…………………

……………………

A sharp knocking woke him. Recollections of another night, another girl and caught up in the memory he stumbled to the door. Opening it before he had a chance to think…before he remembered.

"Mike," Coreen stood on his doorstep clad in a simple black dress, her eyes narrowing, half questioning as if she couldn't believe what she saw.

He stood, leaning against the doorframe, holding it for support. Rumpled police sweatpants were loosely tied at his waist, face covered with what could conservatively be 3 days of stubble. Coreen leaned in closer as he withdrew, blinking from the lights of the hallway, hardly daring to believe that this was Mike Celluci standing before her. He'd always looked so put together….she couldn't even remember seeing him without a tie on, let alone without a shirt! And it was only early evening…

"Have you been drinking?!" she exclaimed, face creasing into a frown of disbelief.

"You come all the way across town to lecture me Coreen?" He said trying hard not to slur the syllables together and catching the door to steady himself as the world rocked and lurched, threatening to send him spilling to the floor.

"You don't remember?" she said, her voice rich with disbelief and her eyes begging him to say differently.

Didn't remember, if only he didn't remember…if only he could forget, but memories of her followed him…haunted him everywhere.

"What do you want Coreen?"

She looked away, hands opening and closing around the handles of her black on black bag.

"It's today, Mike…" she paused, waiting for him to stop her before continuing. "Vicky's funeral? It's today and…"

The door slammed in her face, the air from its closing blowing her hair back and leaving her gasping as shock quickly heated into anger.

She pounded on the door, her fist turning red where it struck the wood again and again.

"Mike! Open the door!" she yelled, not caring who was listening, barely knowing what she said.

"I lost her too Mike, and it hurts and I'm sorry, but she died for us! For you Mike! And the least we could do is to be there for her!" Tears were streaming down her face as the anger collapsed back into the familiar grief and pain. She struck half hearted at the door again, as if she could force all her pain into the wood and metal.

"Mike please…" she begged, leaning against the wall, all her anger vanished. "I don't want to have to go alone."

Mike sat just inside, his back against the wood of the door, hearing the pain in her voice as if from a distance. Good old Mike would have gone with her, he thought, he wouldn't have made Coreen go alone, be alone in this… But he wasn't that person anymore. He couldn't help someone else, even a friend deal with their grief when he was slowly being eaten alive by his own. He couldn't bring himself to go to her funeral…even if they weren't really burying her…even if it was just an empty pine box…

He crawled across the floor, vaguely hearing Coreen's heals click down the tiled hallway as she left. Giving up on him at last. He needed to forget….forget what had happened, what day it was…forget everything.

Liquor burned his throat, like fire settling and boiling in his stomach but bringing peace with it…he took another drink, and another, feeling the darkness gather at the corners of his mind. Who would have thought that after so long fighting the darkness he'd end up needing it, welcoming it? It made the voices of his conscious stop, blocked out the memory of her voice in the morning….he closed his eyes, willing himself to fall faster into the dreamless sleep that would allow him to forget everything… to forget Vicky.

But as always, the last thing that he heard in the heartbeat before unconsciousness took hold was the voice that whispered in his mind, the voice that he couldn't silence no matter how much alcohol he poured down his throat, an insidious thread under the pain and self incrimination….the voice that whispered that he could get her back…if he was willing to pay the price.

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Coreen bit her lip almost clear through trying to stop the tears from spilling out of her eyes as she watched the first handful of soil being sprinkled on Vicky's grave, the brown dusting scuffed the shiny black surface of the coffin, marring the artificial picture with harsh reality. She turned away as the first wetness touched her check, not able to watch as it was lowered into the ground and slowly covered over. Arms hugged around herself she tried to focus on something else, tried to use the headstones and manicured grass and flowers around her to build the picture that Vicky really was lying in that box and going back to the earth, a natural cycle of life and death….it wasn't much of a comfort but even Vicky being buried was better then the reality. But most of the mourners were gone now, the black town cars and taxi's filling up and leaving, heading to the service. The heat of the day that released scents from the floral bouquets was fading as the sun sank to the horizon.

She watched, unable to leave, as first the minister left, then as Kate took Vicky's mother by the arm and walked her to a waiting car. At lot of the police force had shown up, despite the fact that Vicky had left them years ago. Coreen couldn't look at Vicky's mom as she walked by, she had almost the exact same shade of hair as Vicky did, but it was that slight difference that hurt more then the similarity. As she walked she just kept mumbling; "but she wasn't a cop anymore…this doesn't make sense…" Coreen entertained a small and fleeting thought to try and explain it to her, try and make her understand that Vicky had been doing something so much more important, and dangerous then being a detective, but the ending of the story would have been the same. Better that her mom think that Vicky was dead and resting in peace, buried in the family plot, then being tormented in hell by Asteroth for eternity.

She shivered as the cool wind blew, seeming to cut right through her wool skirt and pierce into her skin. It was easy to forget in the warmth of day that it wasn't yet spring. Coreen could still see bits of snow, left hidden behind tall statues and gravestones like a child's forgotten toys.

She stood waiting, knowing that she should be going to the service, that she should be there to try and help in any small way, or at least to maintain the myth of Vicky's death, but somehow even as it got darker, as the sun touched everything with pink and gold and then grey as it sank below the horizon, she waited. There wasn't anything to fear in the dark anymore, thanks to Vicky.

She looked up, not quite knowing what she was looking for as she scanned the darker corners of the cemetery, trying to make her eyes see into the shadows. There---at the curve of the hill where two trees almost touched, she saw him. A shadow figure waiting, watching from the outside.

He was who she'd been waiting for, what had kept her here even without her knowing it. Henry.

"I just…I don't know why I came," he said it quietly, offering it to her and the night like an apology for transgression or trespass.

She waited, still silent. It was a change in her, once upon a time she would have gotten goosebumps at just the thought of being alone in the dark with Henry and need to fill the space with mindless words, but now there was a quiet waiting inside her. As if she knew that if she could only wait long enough there would be answers.

"I'm leaving tonight."

Still nothing.

"I know she's not….she's not here…but leaving without coming here first…" he sighed, trying to find the words that would explain it to her, explain it to himself.

"It would have been like not saying goodbye," Coreen finished for him, looking him in the eye.

Silence stretched and he looked away.

"Where will you go?" she asked.

"I don't know. I just need to get away. Too many memories here, too many ghosts."

Coreen watched him, his eyes going unfocused as he stared at her gravestone, fingers idly tracing the words without really seeing them. She knew that he wasn't just thinking about Vicky, he was remembering the others that he'd lost…dark hair and blonde circling his mind like night and day.

"Will you try and find her?" she asked making Henry's head snap up, fingers going still on the stone. She was doing that far too often for his comfort, guessing his thoughts, knowing what would happen next. He should be worried, Coreen had tapped into powers far beyond anything that she ever had before with her small love charms and protection spells. But it had become painfully clear that he couldn't protect her from

herself, or from the world. He'd learned that lesson the hard way…with Vicky.

"I don't know," he answered honestly, trying to mask his worry. Coreen wasn't his problem anymore but he still felt a sense of responsibility for her.

"Will you come back?"

"I don't know."

She felt her throat tighten and tears threatened to spill over. First Mike, now Henry….Vicky was gone and everything was falling apart, they were falling apart. She blinked, looking down and taking a deep breath. She couldn't lose them all. "I'll be back if I can, take care Coreen," she felt the warmth of his hand on her face, his fingers wiping away a tear and she looked up but he was gone. And she was alone in the night.


	2. Chapter 2

Blood Ties; The Ties that Bind; Ch. 2

Henry wandered the streets, keeping a background whisper of power in the air around him so that anyone who might see him wandering through the misty night would think twice before approaching him. He didn't feel in a particularly social mood tonight.

In fact, he felt like getting out of the city as soon as possible. It seemed like almost every corner he turned, he remembered walking a similar street with Vicky, or seeing her hair refracting a million shades of gold in the light of a street lamp, feeling the soft touch of her hand on his arm, that slight revealing of her vulnerability and need when they were out at night.

He didn't know why he wasn't leaving immediately like he'd told Coreen. Maybe some part of him didn't want to admit that it was really over, that he'd lost her…and somehow if he didn't leave the city, it wouldn't be true. Foolish his mind knew, but he couldn't seem to make his heart let go.

He found his steps slowing as he neared his building, watching the traffic flow past him on the sidewalks and the coloured car lights flash and dart by. She'd stayed here, walked these very steps every day….her smell still lingered in the breeze that blew out the door as be brushed in, faster then sight slipping past the doorman.

Henry paused at the front door, hands tracing the numbers and resting against the smooth wood for a moment before sliding down to the doorknob. He gave a small wrench, hearing the metal screech as the lock broke and the door swung open. His eyes took in the similarities before the difference; furniture was still the same, slight variances in where it was placed; like the screen that had separated off his studio was pulled straight, the desk not visible from the door anymore. The curtains were open to the night and as he looked towards the windows he couldn't help superimposing his last memory of being here with the present; glass shards glittering on the floor, snow falling in through the gaping hole where the window used to be and the scent of blood heavy in the air. She'd gotten the window replaced, he noted, walking up and laying his fingertips against the chilled glass. It was darkly tinted, like the rest, designed to keep out the sun. He moved on, noting the random items of humanity that were scattered around; an extra set of her glasses on the table by the door, a stack of paper notes by the phone and pile of winter gloves, scarves and hats in a chair with her coat. He took a deep breath before walking into the bedroom, eyes closing as he opened the double doors.

The sheets were rumpled, as if she'd just left them a moment before, and he could still see the indentation of her head on the pillow. There were a few framed photos on the table beside the bed; her graduation from the academy, another one of her and Mike standing in front of the office, keys and PI license held up in her hands for the photographer. A blanket and book lay abandoned on the chaise and he could see the bathroom was littered with products and bottles that he never used.

Henry turned, suddenly feeling claustrophobic in the space that he had once been at home in and escaped into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him as if he could as easily shut her out of his mind…out of his heart.

What had he been doing these last few months? Chasing a dream, a ghost, when he could have been here with her…even another moment, another heartbeat with her and he would trade eternity.

He slouched down the wall, until he was sitting on the floor, head in his hands. His very nature was one intimately tied with death, he seen it countless times, been its cause and even experienced it himself….why couldn't he let her go?

---------------------------------------------------

Coreen labeled the last box, wrapping tape around and around the lid to keep it closed. She stood, eyes taking in the office and how empty it looked despite that it was just as full. Furniture was draped with cloths, its gleaming wood and rich colours now a plain beige, and file boxes were piled up around the room.

Vicky had always made this space like a home, comfortable and somewhere that you could relax into. She always said that people who came to her didn't need to be intimidated by the office, but rather feel like they could say anything here. Now, without Vicky's presence, without her energy and life filling the space, it has seemed empty even before Coreen had gotten up the resolve to pack it up.

There was something sad about the light that trickled in through the blinds, as if somehow the very plaster and mortar of the building knew what had happened and was grieving.

Coreen paused with the thought, maybe that's exactly what she was feeling after all. Places could retain the essence of the people who had lived there before, like a psychic fingerprint, and Vicky had spent more time here then almost anywhere else lately. If she could use that link, then maybe she'd be able to convince herself that Vicky was at rest, at peace.

Coreen ran back into the front room, scanning boxes until she found one on the bottom of a pile that was labeled simply with the letter J. She ripped the tape off with her fingernails, in too much of a hurry to find scissors or a knife, revealing a number of books inside, their leather covers unlabelled and unmarked but for a few burn marks at the edges. She pulled out one after another, flipping through the handwritten pages and diagrams until she came upon a familiar page.

It wasn't anything special, just a few lines on the middle of a page, dark spatters of ink randomly decorating one corner. Coreen felt excitement and apprehension heat her blood with the familiar tang of magic as her eyes read over the words and her mouth silently traced the syllables. Even just that small action, not even completing the full spell or ritual brought her close to the boarder between worlds…closer to the brink of hell.


	3. Chapter 3

Blood Ties; The Ties that Bind; Ch. 3

It was supposed to be hot. Fire and brimstone and sulfur stinging his nose. So why was he freezing?

The cold was so intense that it seemed to burn through him, straight to his soul where it stuck like ice lodged deep within him, chilling him from the inside out. His feet and hands were numb, a waxy white blue colour near transparent and he chaffed them together in front of his mouth, watching as his breath blew in a white cloud around him. He coughed, the sound loud in the silence, and he tasted blood on his tongue…the cold was bursting the small blood vessels that lined his lungs.

He looked around, blindly searching for a way out, somewhere sunlit and warm but everything was blue and white and clear ice dull in the shadows, and each way he turned the same icicles and snow drifts blocked his path.

"Hello?!" he called, his voice echoing back towards him. He saw something move at the edge of his vision, and turned automatically towards it.

There was no one there, but his eyes latched onto something coloured and bright in this frozen ice land where the movement had been. It took him a moment to recognize what it was, and then his body recoiled but he couldn't force his eyes away; and he watched mesmerized as a puddle of blood slowly bubbled up out of the ice.

"Mike?" the voice was small and unbelieving behind him, but it cut through him more the pervasive cold. He realized then that he had been waiting for this, been dreading it and needing it at the same time, and always would. He took a breath, steadying himself for what he would see, and turned around.

"Vicky," his voice broke on the name that he vowed he would never say out loud again, it was too closely linked with pain. But this was a dream…nightmare….and allowances could be made.

Her feet were bare, broken and cut from the ice, hands torn and raw from the cold. Her hair lacked its usual golden brilliance, but then there was no light here for it catch, only a muted and never ending twilight. She wore her police uniform, looking for the all world like the day they had graduated from the police academy, uniform pressed and perfect despite the rest of her. Her face was bruised and bloodied, but not a single drop marred the dark perfection of the fabric or the shine on the buttons and brass.

"Mike?" she just stood there, staring at him like she was desperately trying to hold back hope, trying not to believe.

He didn't speak, just ran, uncaring now of the cold and gathered her into his arms, feeling her solid form against him and smelling the familiar scent of her shampoo. He held her tightly, trying to warm her cold body with his own heat, trying to stop what would come next and stay in this moment forever.

"How are you here? You're supposed to be safe now…" Vicky said, burrowing her head deeper into her shoulder, as if even while denying his presence her body instinctively sought the protection and comfort of his.

He just held on tighter, the lump in his throat preventing all speech and squeezing tears out of his eyes that froze before they could fall.

It started with a dampness on his hands where he held her…then the firm muscle of her body beneath the fabric became almost spongy…like a corpse that had been in the water for a few weeks.

He held her trying to block it all out, to remember what it was like to roll over and reach for her in the middle of the night, to watch water running over her skin and rivers of liquid gold in the shower…

But then the smell started…decaying flesh and blood and rot, and he could feel the bones of her fingers pushing through the dying skin where she held him. He didn't have to open his eyes to see what was happening to her…he had the first time he'd had the dream…the nightmare, and it was etched in vivid detail across his eyelids. Her hair would be falling in clumps, the golden shine replaced with the brittle white blonde of death, her eyes would sink, slowly becoming nothing more then blind holes…and her teeth would fall out, mangling the sound of his name when she tried to speak.

He ignored it all, pushing past it and painting the Vicky that he remembered in his mind, as if, if he could only hold onto that image, only believe in it enough it could become reality here.

But as the body in his arms continued to putrefy, he could feel himself beginning to gag, a scream welling up somewhere deep within as he bit his lips closed so hard they bled, the hot blood the only colour in the barren world of ice and cold.

"_Mike…." _ A whisper of sound cut through his desperation and real or not, imagined or hallucinated he latched onto the voice as a thread of sanity to help him hold on; to keep Vicky alive and not let go.

"_Mike….come away now. It's all right…just let go…come on now…" _ And he sobbed as he felt his hands loosen with the softness of that voice, fingers that clutched at bones with ribbons of grey flesh attached slowly came away and as he let go what had been Vicky, the corpse disintegrated into dust around him, and he collapsed into the ice, uncaring of the cold now.

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Gentle hands picked him up, efficiently stripping the clothing from his body before washing the ash and ice crystals from his skin, the water scented with rose petals and orange to remove the taint of death and too much liquor. Where the fingers brushed his skin he felt such a sense of tranquility as he could only remember as existing a lifetime ago and sleep—real peace filled sleep with dreams beckoned.

He struggled to open his eyes, but they were so heavy all of a sudden that he only succeeded in lifting his eyelids briefly, catching a quick glimpse of pale hands with long delicate fingers, and scars that wound like long twinned slashes on the inside of each wrist. He caught an impression of dark hair framing a fair face and sympathetic eyes, before his eyelids slipped closed, a lingering smell of vanilla wafting in the air.

"Sleep Mike," the voice whispered, the soft tone bringing more moisture to his eyes and drops dotted his eyelashes. "Rest and heal, I promise you'll be safe tonight."


	4. Chapter 4

Blood Ties; the Ties that Bind; Chapter 4;

Coreen sprinkled the black roses into the pool of water, watching them distort its surface as they swirled to sink down to the bottom. She let herself fall with them, the light surrounding her receding, the sounds becoming muffled as if she really were hearing it through the water. The black petals grew as she watched, slowly becoming the only thing she could see, their blackness the purest thing she knew…darker then coal, then night, windows into hell.

It stripped everything away from her, until there was nothing but blackness left, and her heart beating loud in the dark. She waited for something, anything to happen as the silence and the dark became more oppressive by the second. But nothing did.

Coreen knew a moment of panic then, the air became thin as she gasped for the shallow breaths that it allowed. Something had gone wrong, this wasn't how it was supposed to happen….her mind circled frantically back to the spell, trying to visualize the few words on the page but the edges frayed and faded into the black.

………_..into the black….flowers dark as night, suspended from the light, shall open your eyes to hell, windows into the black….._

Coreen forced herself to relax, breathing in and out slowly as her heat beat calmed down. Her eyes were the ones to be opened, they were the window through which she could see, not the water. But she had to get through the black first, how to do that? The brief spell was no help, the four lines clearly falling far short of a step by step instruction manual. Maybe if she just pictured what she wanted to find…pictured Vicky.

She closed her eyes, the darkness deeper then any possible blindness felt less strange that way and drew a memory of Vicky, using the black like an empty canvas. She sat at her desk, the light of a late afternoon turning everything to gold around her and bouncing highlights off her hair. She frowned, small lines showing between her eyes and angling up her forehead as she stared at the file before her. Hands clenching and long fingers holding a pen poised over the paper in a moment of indecision. Her glasses were folded on the table as if she was just resting her eyes and at any moment she could pick them up for work again.

But she wouldn't…Coreen knew she wouldn't because this was just a picture, just a memory, like a thousand others of Vicky that she couldn't let go of. But then Vicky did move, just a hand reaching up to brush the hair back from her face, and Coreen's breath caught in the sudden lump formed in her throat.

"Vicky?" her voice emerged no more then a squeak, but Vicky looked up, smiling.

"Coreen, did you find the Mason file? I thought it was here…" she trailed off, eyes becoming troubled and worry settling onto her face like a mask. Coreen watched the thoughts race over her face, until she looked up again. "We're not really at the office are we?" she asked tentatively.

Coreen swallowed, taking a breath and stalling for time. All she'd wanted for the past few months was to be able to see Vicky again, to talk to her, but now that she was here…she'd never imagined that Vicky might not remember that she was dead…that she would be the one to have to tell her that, to live it again.

"What do you remember?" She couldn't move from the doorway, was frozen in place with apprehension.

"I don't know," Vicky mumbled, frowning with a new concern. "I remember…magic …ice…astheroth…." She paused, eyes meeting Coreen's for confirmation that she didn't need. "I died, didn't I?"

Coreen nodded, not trusting her voice as she felt a tear brush down her cheek as Vicky remembered.

Vicky jumped up, coming around the desk cautiously and looking over her shoulder and out the window as she approached. She braced herself for anger, heartbreak…one of any million reactions she couldn't even imagine to learning you were dead. But she wasn't prepared for the determined fear that came next.

"Coreen, you can't be here. You have to go."

Caught off guard, Coreen forgot everything she'd meant to say: "What? Why, I just got here, I needed to be sure that you're okay."

"I'm fine," Vicky said briefly, eyes still peering into the corners of the room searching for something as she grabbed Coreen's arm, trying to steer her out of the office. "Heaven's great, blue sky's and ice cream. Now go home."

Coreen planted her feet, refusing to move. "Vicky…Vicky! Listen to me." She reversed the grip on her arm so that she was holding onto Vicky, shaking her slightly so that she'd stop for a moment.

"My spell didn't bring me to heaven Vicky, we're…you're…in hell. With him." She waited for it to hit Vicky, for it to sink in and crush her, but nothing happened, nothing changed.

"I know," Vicky sighed in defeat. "I should have known you'd know…I just hoped that I could make you believe otherwise. I'm sorry, I really am, but none of this is your fault Coreen. None of it. There wasn't any other way that this could work out, I see that now. Right from the beginning, from the moment these marks were first burned onto me, there was no other future for me. Sure, I tried to fight it, but you can win the battles and still lose the war. For Asteroth to be back in hell, I had to go too. I'm his gateway, no one else could have stopped him, and no other way. The spell, it worked out how it had to. But now you have to stay away from magic Coreen. You have to." Vicky shook her, both hands gripping her arms and slowly pushing her back out the door. "It's dangerous…it can open channels…windows like this one that will just bring you closer to evil. Closer to being used by him, or others…you can't ever fight them Coreen, you can't ever win. And playing in their world is just dangerous—it will draw attention. Now go!"

"Vicky! Wait!" she yelled as Vicky walked away from her back into the office, sitting down at the desk as if nothing had happened.

"Coreen, go…" Vicky looked up, pain in her eyes. "Please," she begged. "Things happen when you stay long enough…please."

"Things? What things?" Coreen caught herself looking around the room, finding shadows that she would have sworn weren't there when she arrived.

"Please," Vicky said, the darkening light making her hair look like smoke, eyes flashing with fire. "Tell him I'm sorry."

And flames began to lick at her skin, turning the smooth flesh into a mass of blackened blisters, and her hair caught on fire, its golden glow replaced by a twisted hungry red. And Coreen screamed, because Vicky was still trying to talk to her…still alive even though she burned, her bones turning black as the skin was burned off….but still the hands reached out to her, and the mouth incapable of sound opened and closed…

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"Coreen!" Henry shook her, feeling the cold seeping out from her skin and into his fingers. She lay, still and stiff as death on the floor, a bowl overturned beside her, water soaking into the carpet.

"Coreen!" He grabbed her when she started screaming, eyes open wide with fear; their entire surface as black as the petals that were strewn across the floor.

She sat up suddenly, hands blindly holding onto him as she fought to put the horror behind her. Tried to convince herself that it had only been a dream, even as the black receded from her eyes and slowly she could see the light again even if she couldn't feel it.

Henry felt her trembling, soaking wet. But she was here again and breathing and that was enough for now. When he'd walked in, seeking solace from the visions of Vicky he'd encountered at his apartment, the sight of Coreen like death on the floor had shocked him as nothing had in more years then he could remember. So soon after losing Vicky, he found he couldn't stand to lose her too.

He lifted her, not protesting as she usually would have, setting her on the couch and drawing the beige sheet over her to try and keep her warm.

"Are you alright?" her heart was still beating too fast, fear practically swamping his senses and putting him on edge.

"No," she said, still clutching at his coat.

"What happened? What did you do?" Any layperson could guess that he'd walked in right in the middle of some magic, but not even he could guess at what the spell had been for. In a matter of a few months, Coreen had far surpassed anything that he could ever hope of understanding of magic. He felt that he barely knew the girl who sat shaking before him, her eyes still dark—although now not literally so—with some evil she had witnessed.

" A spell," she said, voice still raw from screaming and her hand shaky as she pointed to where a box sat, its lid ripped open and a book on the floor beside it. "A spell to open a window…to see her."

"What?..."he trailed off, mind drawn in too many directions to pick only one. "How?" but then he saw the label—if a single letter could count as a label—and understood. How else could Coreen have learned how to do half the things that she could now?

"I didn't know you had those," he said quietly, untangling himself from her and standing up.

"It's not her fault. I went looking for it, I came up with the idea, found the ingredients, did the spell. All on my own Henry."

He turned away, not inclining to give that obvious statement any response. The smell of magic was like musk in the air, so thick and dank he nearly choked on it with every breath. He walked to the window, propping it open and feeling a chill settle inside him with the cold air.

"You know how I feel about magic."

"Yes I do," she said. "And I'm not going to apologize for it either. Not for this spell or the other one. But you need to know this Henry, you need to know what I found."

He didn't turn but he discovered that he could learn to hate the coldness that was in her now. Magic like this took its toll, even if she couldn't see it, he could see it in her.

"She's not at peace Henry. She's not any of those nice things that they said today at the funeral. She's in hell Henry. For me…for you. And she's being tortured by him. And will continue to be for eternity. Unless we do something about it."

"Even magic has its limitations Coreen, you can't just run to it whenever there's something you don't like…something's aren't meant to be changed."

"You can't mean that…" Coreen stood up, sheet still draped around her, the chill forgotten as she stared at Henry where he waited by the window, cold arrogance all that she could read in his moonlit profile. "This is Vicky…you can't just say that we leave her in hell being tortured forever by that bastard demon?"

Henry turned slightly so she couldn't see him close his eyes, see the emotion that her words evoked in him. If there was anything to be done he would be the first person suggesting it, even if it meant going to hell and back…but…"Coreen, there are just some things that you can't change, that aren't meant to be changed no matter how much you wish that you could, that you would give anything to make the ending different. Death is one of them, once you cross that boundary there are no second chances."

"Oh, I don't know about that," a familiar voice said from the outer room. "I seem to recall that there is at least **one** way to get around that particular problem."


	5. Chapter 5

Blood Ties; The Ties that Bind; Chapter 5

Coreen whirled around, breath leaving her lungs in a gasp as she took in who stood in the doorway before her eyes guiltily slunk away, remembering the books and pages that lay as clear evidence of her theft…but still a small joy and hope bloomed in the depths of her eyes.  
Henry didn't move from the window, as if her appearance had been expected, natural and scripted. He'd sensed her for days now, known that she was close. He'd learned a long time ago that hunting for her was no use though, she'd reveal herself when she wanted to and not a moment before.

"I wish it were that easy," he said, watching her pale and wavy reflection in the glass.

"Easy? Nothing about it is easy." Jay pushed off the doorway striding into the room, past where Coreen stood, taking in the flower petals and soaked rug before picking up the book where it lay discarded on the floor. Her book. "I wouldn't confine Vicky to that particular fate any more then I would leave her in hell," she said, words meant to wound as she looked from the book to Coreen, steadfastly refusing to look at him.

"So you mean there is something that we can do then?" Coreen said, hope showing through in her voice as she moved towards Jay.

"I won't promise that it's possible," she said, "It's dangerous and crazy and probably fatal but yes, there might be a way." Her eyes moved over the fallen petals again, cataloging and categorizing what their presence might mean.

"How?" Coreen asked, showing her naivety in the question and Henry couldn't help but laugh out loud, bitter loss in the tone.

"Magic, how else? Dark magic that rips apart the very seams of the world and bridges the gap between living and dead."

"Something like that yes," she answered, and there was a challenge in the words and as he turned and looked at her for the first time there seemed to be a million stars falling in her eyes.

"I can't be a party to that," he said, voice choking on the words.

Coreen stared at him in disbelief. "But this is Vicky…how can you just walk away? Leave her?"

"Because I won't trade your life for hers," he said, but it wasn't Coreen he was looking at, eyes locked and glaring with a daring of their own at Jay. "Do you know what that kind of power will do to her? What it will draw to her? How far it will carry her? How can you ask her to do that? To ask for that, not even knowing the cost…" he trailed off, disgusted and barely able to look at her any longer.

"Not her Henry," Jay countered, eyes shining with something that Henry couldn't name…wouldn't name. "As much as Coreen may have learned, as far as she's come, she isn't strong enough to do this." Jay turned, for the first time breaking her gaze from Henry and her voice softened as she looked at Corren, the third wheel to their verbal sparring. "He's right. You may be able to open a window to hell," she said looking meaningfully down at the book clutched in her arms. "But there's no way that you have the power to open a doorway. Others have tried, and it's consumed them, body and soul. You'd be in the same position as your friend, only not solely Asteroth's personal plaything." She looked back to Henry, outlined against the night, something in him darker then even it. "Not her Henry, me."

He knew a moment of his own hope then, it blossomed brightly inside him, the thought of seeing Vicky again, of holding her so bright within him he thought he must burn with it. Because Jay might be able to do it. He'd never known anyone more powerful as a witch, her vampire abilities only adding to her strength and God only knew what sort of talents she'd learned and inherited as a Guardian. He looked up, eyes finding hers and knowing that no matter how he might want to hide it, something of his thoughts showed in his face. But then it died, slowly being burned out of him by the look that she returned to him; it wasn't joy or hope or faith that she could do this thing, it was the same look of fierce determination and loathing that he'd seen not so long ago lit by the first rays of dawn.

"I can't do it…I won't" he said, eyes no longer able to hold hers as he looked away in defeat and repeated: "I won't trade your life for hers."

Coreen looked back and forth between Jay and Henry, feeling left out and confused, like someone who walks in on the middle of a movie and suddenly doesn't know who any of the characters are. There was something here that she was missing, some subtext that seemed to reach into the very core of what they were…she had a fleeting thought that she might be able to find out what it was, a little flicker of magic…but Jay turned towards her, eyes knowing and warning of danger at the same time and the thought vanished like mist as if it never was.

There were twin whirlwinds in the room then, as Henry brushed past, billowing the sheet out behind her on his way out the door and as Jay on edge moved to the opposite window, refusing to allow him within arms reach of her. Not again.

Coreen shook her head, mentally moving past the thrill of having vampires in her life again and holding onto the one thing in this whole conversation that had made sense to her; the one thing that mattered.

"But you think that we can do this thing, this spell, whatever it is and get her back? We can free her from hell?"

"Yes," Jay answered from where she stood, leaning against the other windowsill almost in an unconscious parody of how Henry had stood before. "There might be a way…but first there something I have to retrieve that we're going to need."


End file.
